The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
There are two types of keyword search:
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1449 contributions
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Will that cover larger cross-Government areas, such as public service reform and child poverty?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
If we have continuing pressures on public finance, clearly we need to see how money is being spent. A lot of the public sector reform that we have talked about for years has also been about how we can shift to more preventative spending. I do not see how we can do that without being able to see what our money is delivering, particularly when some of that preventative spend will be long term.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 17 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
I want to ask some questions about performance reporting, which you touched on earlier. Since the start of the Parliament in 1999 there has been a desire to better understand how money is performing in terms of outcomes. When I joined the Parliament in 2007, I sat on the Finance Committee, and we heard about international best practice from, I think, Virginia. The then Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, now First Minister, John Swinney, was keen to introduce a structure or framework that would help us to better understand what our money was delivering. From that came the national performance framework.
It is a bit disappointing that one of the key messages in your report is that the Scottish Government cannot clearly demonstrate that public spending is delivering the intended outcomes. At paragraph 85, you talk about the reform strategy for the national performance framework. It would be good to understand what the challenges are with the NPF and what you hope will come out of the review and refresh of the NPF.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 16 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Minister, I go back to Sandesh Gulhane’s question about regulated professional bodies and the inclusion of the General Osteopathic Council and the General Chiropractic Council. My understanding is that neither osteopaths nor chiropractors in this country are medically trained—though they are in some other countries—and I am therefore not aware of their ability to prescribe pharmaceuticals, so their inclusion is unclear. When we asked which procedures they might be covered for, we were not given an answer.
I am really concerned that we have a potential loophole that could cause confusion. People might think that, because someone is regulated by the General Osteopathic Council or the General Chiropractic Council, they can perform the procedures that are outlined in the legislation. There is no reason for people to think that, so I ask you to consider whether those two bodies should be removed from the bill to ensure that it is as clear as possible.
Health, Social Care and Sport Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 16 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
I would appreciate it if you would do that. If someone has cerebral palsy and requires those injections, they should go to a medical practitioner to receive them. I would be concerned if people were routinely receiving medical treatment from people who are not medically trained.
I am not criticising the work that those bodies do, but neither of them have medically trained individuals. If we are inadvertently indicating to the public that they are somehow medical practitioners, I would be concerned about that. I am grateful for your agreement to look at that again and consider whether the two groups should be removed from the bill.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Do Andrew Watson or Gavin Henderson want to add anything around this? There are obviously many shared responsibilities.
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Thanks for that. That all sounds good. David, do you want to add your comments?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Gosh, I almost want to change my questions after hearing the points that David Anderson made in answer to Colin Beattie’s questions. I will try and shift a little bit, however.
David was mostly talking about the Scottish Government’s responsibilities and how it has interacted. I am keen that we all recognise that the Promise was made by not just the Scottish Government but other public bodies, too. It was a promise from the whole of Scotland that we all need to make sure that we are keeping.
I am keen to hear how we are managing to get the joined-up working that is required. I would be keen to hear from COSLA whether there is the correct engagement across local authorities. If we could hear from COSLA first, then maybe David Anderson could talk about the experience from his perspective on whether local authorities are managing to get the engagement that they require with the Scottish Government and with other significant public authorities, such as local national health services. Would Nicola Dickie or Fiona Whitelock want to come in first?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Sorry, what I mean is, on a local level, are we managing to get the people who are all committed to the Promise to work together? The Promise cannot be delivered in silos. It can only be delivered if we all work effectively as team Scotland to deliver something that we have all promised. We are all committed to this. I have not heard anybody saying that they are not committed to the Promise, so we cannot do it in isolation. Are we managing to break down the barriers that have sometimes made such a joined-up piece of work more difficult? Are local authorities experiencing that change and are they managing to work not just for the Scottish Government and not just across their own portfolios, but with big organisations such as the NHS?
Public Audit Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 10 December 2025
Joe FitzPatrick
Thanks for that. My next question was going to be whether you were able to start doing that, so that we, as politicians, can make sure that we are putting pressure in the right place. If you have that in hand, that sounds good. Thanks very much. Thank you, convener.